Description

Edmund Randolph Autograph Letter Signed "Edm.
Randolph". One page, 7.25" x 9", December 23, 1786, a highly
important letter regarding the pardoning of prisoners addressed to
The Honorable Speaker of the House of Delegates, with the integral
leaf docketed in another hand, neatly inlaid. In part: "the
general assembly will collect his distress for money, and the
dreadful consequence to his unfortunate prisoners, if that distress
be not immediately removed. In the contingent fund, to which resort
is regularly to be had on these occasions, not a shilling can be
found: and the executive cannot approve the expedient of borrowing
from other funds during the session of the legislature. I therefore
beg leave to consign the wretched condition of the prisoners to
your immediate attention, and to request, that some certain
provisions be made for them in [the] future. The act authorizing
the executive to grant conditional pardons being about to expire on
the last day of this month; I am advised to inform the assembly
that it is probable in the eye of the law, that in case of a motion
to the general court to award execution de novo on a criminal
already conditionally pardoned, who may have escaped and may be
retaken after that day - the court could not proceed against him.
It is therefore submitted, how far it may be fit, to declare that
this law, notwithstanding its expiration shall justify anew award
of execution for any breach of the condition committed, while it
was in force. It will perhaps be proper too to remind the assembly
that from the peculiar phraseology of that act it may be necessary
to continue the power of outlawing, in order to give affect to the
other parts of it..." A member of the Constitutional
Convention, Randolph was the first Attorney General and then
Washington's second Secretary of State, but resigned after being
falsely charged with bribery. He later represented Aaron Burr in
his treason trial. Fine.

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